promulgated situations like this, in both cases deadly, and the question to our leaders in washington is what side of this do you want to be on. that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. hi, there. i'm stephanie ruhle. it is wednesday, july 21st, and we are covering a lot this morning. lawmakers working late into the night to hammer out the details of an infrastructure bill. the senate is set to vote this afternoon on whether to move forward, but what happens if it fails? that is the big question. also this morning, another member of former president donald trump's inner circle behind bars, at least for now. tom barrack, chairman of the

2016 celebration, formally charged with violating lobbying laws and obstructing justice. and millions of americans are under air quality warnings caused by fires taking place 2,000 miles away. we have to start this morning with the coronavirus. it is not behind us. as the delta variant escalates to a whole new level this morning, the hyper transmissible variant now accounts for 83% of all new covid cases nationwide. and in just the last two weeks, the average of new infections has skyrocketed 200%, and deaths are now up 44%. get vaccinated, kids. and new fallout this morning after a very heated exchange on capitol hill. dr. anthony fauci blasting senator rand paul during a hearing yesterday after the kentucky republican accused dr. fauci of lying to congress about the role of the national institute of health played on funding research that took place in wuhan, china. >> senator paul, you do not know what you are talking about,

quite frankly, and i want to say that officially. you do not know what you are talking about. and you are implying that what we did was responsible for the deaths of individuals. i totally resent that. >> it could have been. >> if anybody is lying here, senator, it is you. >> fauci making it official, you do not know what you are talking about. and the head of tokyo's 2020 olympics organizing committee now saying the games could be canceled by the international olympic committee as more athletes are testing positive for the virus and sponsors are ditching plans to attend friday's opening ceremony. i have got the best team to help make sense of all of this, starting with stephanie gosk in tokyo, and allison barber in south carolina, and dr. gupta, a global health policy expert. you are at the same hospital you visited one year ago, when the icu unit was overwhelmed with covid patients. what's it like right now?

that state is not doing very well in terms of vaccines. >> reporter: yeah, it was almost exactly one year ago when this hospital had a designated covid icu ward. they were able to officially close that ward about four months ago, but now they're having conversations about whether or not they should reopen it. last monday they had zero covid patients in the icu here. as of yesterday, they have nine patients, covid patients, in the icu. the ninth patient was actually brought on the floor while we were there. all but one of them are unvaccinated. eight out of nine have been placed on a ventilator at some point. four of them were on ventilators yesterday. when we were here a year ago, the patients that i saw in icu because of covid-19 on ventilators, they were people's grandparents, they were much older. but this time the patients i saw, they were so young, that the first three patients i saw it caught me off guard and i asked the doctor to tell me how

old each of them were, because they looked like they could be my friends. i'm 31. the first patient that i saw ventilated, his eyes swollen shut, was 26 years old, right across the hall from him was a man in his 40s. right next to him was a man in his 30s. doctors say the unvaccinated patients they see that are needing intensive care, severe covid cases, that most of them don't have any pre-existing conditions. some are medically considered overweight, but other than that, they say these are healthy young individuals. the only thing they really have in common is that they are all unvaccinated. stephanie? >> okay. and we've heard that over and over from all sorts of healthy young people, saying i'm not getting vaccinated because i don't need it. are these people where you are who are getting sick and dying, is their health changing the tune of all their friends and family around them who have said i don't need to get it?

>> reporter: well, doctors really hope so. the patients who have experienced this, it is certainly impacting them. we met one man, his name a lonzo comber, he's just 40 years old. he had been eligible to get vaccinated for covid-19, get a covid-19 vaccine months before he contracted covid-19. but he said he didn't do it when he was eligible because he didn't really feel like he needed it. he also had some concerns that he felt like the vaccines were just too new. but then he contracted covid-19 and spent nearly two months at this hospital, weeks in the icu, intubated on a ventilator. his family was told that they should start making funeral preparations. now he is trying to tell anyone who will listen that they should get vaccinated, because there is not a day that goes by that he doesn't wish he had gotten vaccinated when he had the chance. listen to what he told us and his message to other people. >> i would tell them go ahead

and get the vaccination, because the covid, it's for real. like it had me on my dying bed and i didn't know whether i was going to make it back or not. >> reporter: he told me he has moments, randomly, where he's at home and he just thinks about how different his life might be right now if he had gotten vaccinated when he was eligible. you can see in the video he's on oxygen. the oxygen tank is necessary because of what he went through with covid-19. he's unable to work right now and he continues to struggle, even though he's been out of the hospital since early june. stephanie? >> dr. gupta, it's not just you need to listen, it's you need to listen to who, to your doctor. because there's lots of pockets in conservative media, for example, who have been pushing conspiracy theories or fanning the flames of vaccine hesitancy. but we've seen a shift, at least with one very influential person.

i want to share what sean hannity is now saying on fox news. >> please take covid seriously. i can't say it enough. enough people have died. it absolutely makes sense for many americans to get vaccinated. i believe in science, i believe in the science of vaccination. >> i welcome that message. what do you make of this drastic change? >> good morning, stephanie. just like you can't cry fire in a theatre and potentially be free from a suit, i think sean hannity, thank you for sean hannity to put the message out, but i think he's recognizing that there are actual repercussions by using a platform even if you're not a doctor and spreading this information. they're probably becoming aware of the responsibility they have from a legal standpoint. that's part of it. broadly speaking, stephanie, to your point, i think most people in this country are reachable and those that are quote/unquote hesitant are reachable. i've just found that they need

to have their questions answered, whether it's threat perception. covid is actually very serious if you're young. or just answering questions one-on-one. that's why those conversations individually with doctors are really, really vital. >> a lot of vaccinated people out there are angry about these covid numbers because they're voluntary and we're now hearing a number of school districts are going to require masks, los angeles county is reinstating the mask mandate. how difficult is this going to be to execute? people who follow the rules, they don't want to go back and they don't feel like they should have to. >> i'm a firm believer that we need perspective and calm. and there is a significant decoupling of cases with hospitalizations and deaths. there's a huge decoupling. we're seeing fairly low numbers, in l.a. county only 3% of their hospital census is covid patients. they are not experiencing hospital stress from covid right now.

we need context and perspective. this is not july 2020. we're in a much different place because of vaccination. 99.2% of all hospitalized patients right now in the united states, according to the cdc, are unvaccinated if they have covid at their primary diagnosis. so i agree, i think this notion that we're going to go back to indoor mask mandates across the country is probably not tenable, and frankly, is unnecessary for adults 18 and over where there is no discernible level of concerning viral transmission or hospital stress. >> then what about people who are not over the age of 18? a 5-year-old boy in georgia died of covid. i know it is very, very rare to see this in a young child, but what do you tell parents who have kids under the age of 12 who can't get vaccinated yet? >> i think the american academy

of pediatrics was right on by requiring masking in schools for the time being, particularly because some of the other prescriptions the cdc says for a safe and healthy school environment, like indoor ventilation are hard to do. you can't invest in the hvac updates that can caused 30,000 per room, stephanie. they just don't have the resources. so i think indoor masking for those 2 and above right now in the school age group makes a lot of sense, even if severe outcomes from covid are rarer. >> steph, take us to tokyo, the olympics. what are the chances the games could actually be canceled at the last minute? my heart is breaking for those athletes. >> reporter: well, the short answer, steph, is the chances are really low. but let me give you a little bit of context. the official that you talked about, the head of the tokyo organizing committee was in a press conference and he was asked by the japanese media about this question. you have to understand that there is anxiety in this country, there is anxiety in

this city about numbers they're seeing going up. the head health official in the country just yesterday saying that they are in their fourth wave. it could be the most severe wave yet, and that cases here in tokyo could go up to 3,000 a day. that is separate from the headlines we've been getting out of the olympics, and the cases that we've been seeing. you have to understand that there are tens of thousands of people in this country now who are associated with the olympics. they are getting tested, all of them, every single day, and you still have a positivity rate of less than 0.2%. and while if there was a major spike, they might revisit this idea of canceling the games, they aren't seeing it just yet. on that note, though, there are athletes that are going to lose out on this olympics because of positive test results. the latest an american athlete, a beach volleyball player. he tested positive. his chances of competing are dashed now. >> chances of competing dashed.

thank you all so very much. now we have got to turn to capitol hill, where in a few hours we're going to see the first vote on the infrastructure bill, the bipartisan group of senators worked through the night to try to craft the bill's language ahead of today's vote. so far, nothing has been finalized. joining me, national political reporter and white house reporter. so there's no bill yet. what are they going to vote on? if i found my dream house out there, would i make a bid on it without an inspection, without knowing what's inside, without knowing what it even cost? no, even if i loved the house. >> hey, stephanie. the senate is essentially voting today on whether to begin debate formally on this infrastructure deal, the $579 billion deal that senators, as you mentioned, worked late into the night trying to resolve final disagreements on. that meeting included dinner, it included wine. some senators came out of it, republican and democrat, hopeful that they could reach a deal by

today. but the reality is unless there is an immediate breakthrough in the next few hours, the vote is likely to fail. it needs 60 to move forward and republicans say they are reluctant to do that until they have a final product. that doesn't necessarily mean the vote is dead. this is all a product of chuck schumer permanently haunted by the memories of 2019 when democrats let negotiations with republicans drag on and on for months without ultimately getting any of their votes. he doesn't want to do that. >> hold on. does a failed procedural vote mean that's a step backwards or it's a tiny step forward, that they're going to negotiate more? speak to the millions of americans that aren't paying attention to every little twist in washington, but they just want to know if there's any policy changes. >> reporter: it's a great question, and i don't think it will mean much if it fails, because i've spoken to numerous republican senators, including

those close to the group, who say that a failed vote will have no bearing on the ultimate negotiations. and for ordinary people at home a failed vote means they'll have to wait a little longer to know whether those roads and bridges are coming to their state, the public transit and broadband is coming to their neighborhood. again, i like the question because it's a reminder that what happens here is not just a game. it has tangible impacts for people's lives all over the country and we will see based on today's vote and based on whether negotiations go, if they're any closer to getting this deal done, stephanie. >> shannon, how closely is the white house watching this? how big of a blow would it be to the two infrastructure bills if this first one can't even get past a vote, a test vote? >> reporter: well, this isn't a death blow, but it shows what a slog it is going to be to get something passed in this congress, particularly something bipartisan. and, again, we're not talking about some massive $2 trillion

package with all of president biden's hopes and dreams. this is a $500 billion compromise, bipartisan, mostly solid bricks and mortar infrastructure bill that is still struggling to even make it through these procedure hurdles. it doesn't mean it is impossible, but it means it is going to be a battle up to the finish line and veterans of this white house who have been in other administrations, who have been on the hill, they know what that is like. they know that these fights never come easy. they are hunkering down and continuing forward. we've got president biden heading to cincinnati again today to make the sales pitch for this infrastructure and the broader one that he hopes to get through just democratic support, the $3.5 billion bill, but there is a sense of urgency in this white house. and there has been a sense of urgency, i would say, since the first weeks. but we are now at the six month mark, we are bumping up into an august recess. there's a hope that this can get passed in september.

that's sort of been the white house thinking all along. the clock is ticking. and i know it's silly to say six months into a presidency, everything is over, but the way washington works they've got to move quickly here. >> it's not silly. you know what's silly? if democrats think that republicans aren't going to walk away from the bipartisan deal, if democrats believe they're going to automatically link it to an additional $3.5 trillion deal they're doing on their own, they have another thing coming. thank you both so much. coming up, look outside. you may have noticed a hazy, almost smoky sky around you. you are not going to believe what is causing that. we're going to get into the new air quality warnings in cities across the country. first, the man who chaired trump's 2017 inaugural committee, who spoke at the 2016 convention, arrested in l.a. the stunning details about tom barrack's back door dealings next.

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developing this morning, the man who chaired former president trump's 2017 inaugural committee is waking up behind bars after he was arrested on federal charges of acting at an unregistered foreign agent. tom barrack will remain in custody until his bail hearing on monday, but he is expected to plead not guilty. let's go straight to pete williams. what led to these charges? we know he has been going back and forth with the government

really for the last five years. how unusual is it that he's going to be sitting in jail until monday? >> reporter: well, it's a little bit unusual because he was brought in on an indictment, but he hasn't entered his plea yet. he is charged with violating a federal law that makes it a crime to lobby the u.s. government on behalf of a foreign government without notifying the justice department of the lobbying. and the charges say that for more than a year, barrack tried to influence the foreign policy first of the trump campaign and then the administration by pushing ideas that were favorable to the government of the united arab emirates. prosecutors say he got pro-uae language into trump's speeches and the charges say he was in constant touch with a businessman in the emirates who was close to uae officials and the government says he met with some of them in december 2016 after trump was elected and suggested they give him a wish

list of foreign policy goals that they would like the u.s. to adopt in the short term and long term. so he's accused of using that insider access with trump, such as his role as chairman of the trump inaugural fund in 2017, and prosecutors say when the fbi questioned barrack about these allegations in 2019 he repeatedly made false statements, denying that he was lobbying for a foreign country. by the way, two others were also indicted. a former aide to barrack in his investment firm in los angeles, and the businessman that barrack dealt with in the uae, stephanie. >> what are his attorneys saying about all of this? it's been known for years, tom barrack has been close to trump for decades, he's also been managing money for those in the middle east for years. is he just saying it was a paperwork issue, i forgot to file that i was representing them? >> reporter: well, no, it's not just that. what we're saying is they're basically denying that he was

pushing the uae's agenda. there's no suggestion in these documents that he was paid by the uae for any of this. his spokesman said that he made himself voluntarily available to investigators, that he didn't do anything, that he is not guilty and he will plead not guilty probably when he appears at the court appearance on monday. >> yeah, but, tom -- but, pete, even if he wasn't given a check for specific influence, he was managing money for those from the middle east for years, and having that money means he's getting huge fees and makes lots of money on it. that's certainly how you get a happy investor, hooking them up with the president. >> reporter: and of course, you're right, because as a legal matter it doesn't matter whether he was paid or not. the law simply says if you basically do a foreign government's bidding without telling the government and you're trying to lobby the government or the public without

notifying the attorney general, you've committed a crime, whether or not you get paid for it. so the fact is, according to prosecutors, he already had these close relationships with many countries in the middle east, and he was basically using his influence to continue these relationships, using his influence with trump. that's the government's theory of the case. >> any time you tell me you're right, i love it when you're on. pete williams, thank you. just a reminder, it is not just tam barrack. it has been quite a legal ride for trump's funding chairs and deputies. i want you to look at these headlines on your screen. trump's funding chairs, look what's happened to them. boom, boom, boom. legal issues across the board. coming up, three separate companies putting their money into space exploration. does that mean it's time for the government to take a back seat? they already are. we're going to talk to the head of nasa next.

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>> two, one.

>> for all those millions of americans who are watching this who are saying this is a joyride, it has nothing to do with me, what did you experience that matters to all americans? >> well, listen, we have to build a road to space so that our kids and their kids can build a future. we live on this beautiful planet. we saw this, it feels like this atmosphere is huge and we can disregard it and treat it poorly. when you get up there and you see it, how tiny and fragile it is. >> that was jeff bezos and his brother mark telling me about their historic flight. they touched down safely after going just past the edge of space. with the billionaire space race in full swing led by private businesses, what is the role of government at this point? joining me, former astronaut and senator, bill nelson. senator, our country has been losing interest in space travel over the last few decades, but

what happened yesterday, that can only happen in america. and what we saw just two weeks ago with richard branson. can these events get america excited again? >> america is already excited. first of all, you saw how excited jeff bezos was, and look at how america got excited about the volkswagen sized rover on mars and then the little helicopter. and now all of this, plus elon going into orbit, taking crews to and from the international space station. stephanie, at the end of the year, we're going to launch the largest, most expansive, the most thrust rocket that has ever launched off of the planet, the space launch system, which is going to take us back to the moon. so people are excited.

>> does all of this show us that the government doesn't have to be responsible for funding everything? you've got these private businesses with these space flights doing all sorts of research and development and the government uses their commercial crafts. does this show us that government can work with private business and the taxpayer doesn't have to foot the whole bill? >> well, it's a combination. as a matter of fact, for example, the delivery of cargo and crew to the international space station, that's a fixed price contract with commercial companies. when we go to the moon, we're going on a government rocket, but we're going to then exchange crew into a landing on the moon on a commercial rocket. but when we send up the telescope that is going to look back 13, almost 13 1/2 billion

years to the source of light right after the big bang, that's a government project. so it's a combination of all. >> i want to share what bezos believes we can and should do next. watch this. >> we need to take all heavy industry, all polluting industry, and move it into space and keep earth as this beautiful gem of a planet that it is. that's going to take decades and decades to achieve, but you have to start. >> do you agree with that? are your priorities at nasa in line with bezos and others, let's take our waste and chuck it off the planet? >> no, that's not what he said. he said let's go out and discover, explore, and manufacture in space. and what he wants to do is to set up colonies in space. he wants to preserve planet earth from becoming

overpopulated, and certainly wants to preserve from such things as climate change by getting out and finding out new things and relieving some of the stress on earth by going to space. what about if we go up into space and suddenly we create new sources of energy? what if we go and mine exotic materials on asteroids? there's so much potential out there, and he was correct, it's going to take decades and decades. but this is the excitement of the times that we are now living, stephanie. >> all right, and senator, thank you for joining me. i appreciate it. i want to bring in scott galloway, professor of marketing at the school of business and the cohost of the pivot podcast. a lot of people say this was just a joyride for bezos and his buddies and he should be

spending his money on other things. can't we have it both ways? you can hate jeff bezos personally, you can be mad at how he pays or doesn't pay his taxes, but at the same time think this is a pretty significant event. >> first off, stephanie, good to see you. i just want to recognize you returning safely from texas i think is an achievement for all mankind. very inspiring. >> thank you. >> you summarized it perfectly yesterday. it's his money, he can spend it how he wants to spend it. but as an industry, senator nelson summarized it i think pretty well, and we're going to go from 3,000 satellites to 50,000 satellites. the business of space hauling makes sense. i think the business of space tourism makes absolutely no sense. i think it's dangerous, expensive. i think the market is very small. so ideally there's some private public benefit here. nasa and the pentagon now have

additional bidders for people to put things in space. but more than anything, i think it kind of reflects a shift in our values. the total budget of nasa is $22 billion. jeff bezos has added $100 billion in his wealth in the last ten years and has paid a tax rate of around 1%. so essentially we have decided to elect leaders who have said we don't want to fund nasa, we want to find people who do amazing things here on earth and make them responsible for taking us to the next frontier. i quite frankly have never seen anything that so many people tuned into that had so much disdain for it. and i realize i sound cynical and i'm hitting on the shores of spain being cynical. but this feels uncomfortable to me. i would be curious to get your thoughts given that you were actually there. >> i mean, i guess i kind of feel like disdain, why? who cares? it's jeff bezos's money. if really, really rich people want to fork over hundreds of millions of dollars for their

vanity trips to outer space, what do i care? it's more business. the town i was in in rural texas, they could certainly use a lot more business. go burn your money, rich people. i don't care. if it means that business does a whole lot of research and development that then helps our government, have at it. >> i think those are fair points. i said this yesterday. i'm nostalgic. so the youngest person in space was sally rye and this was the daughter of a minister who got a ph.d. in physics and applied to nasa and was an inspiring person. now the youngest person in space is the 18-year-old son of a dutch billionaire. you know, yesterday mia jamison, who was an astronaut, was on with me. this is an individual born in alabama, masters in chemical engineering, got a medical doctors degree, used that degree to go to liberia, applied to nasa twice.

i miss the days of sally and mae -- >> yes, me, too. and that's why mae jamison is honored and on our television all day and i never said the name of that 18-year-old kid and i never will again. who cares what those rich people do? don't we need to find a way to get them excited about a race to solve climate change? not just get them excited about little boys and their big rockets? they want to burn their money, do it. >> but they're not only burning their money, they're burning our attention. i just find it kind of strange and a little bit weird that we seem to be obsessed over a rocket going up nearly to the line and floating down, when 50 years ago we sent three brave people 250,000 miles, tried to land them on something rotating at several thousands miles per hour and got them home safely, and we're trying to position this as for all mankind. i think it would have been a lot

cheaper if mr. bezos had taken a corvette and crashed into a hair plugs clinic. i apologize for sounding cynical. i don't understand what the achievement was. >> not necessarily an achievement, but it was an extraordinary thing from a science perspective. let's give nasa a whole lot more money and have the government do it. scott galloaway, thank you. >> coming up, covid and overdose deaths are driving up life expectancy in the u.s. what experts are saying needs to be done to reverse this trend. and we're going to talk to two restaurant owners who were forced to close their doors because customers were so abusive to their employees. their messages next. with 20 grams of protein for muscle health. versus 16 grams in ensure high protein. boost® high protein also has key nutrients for immune support. boost® high protein. new dove men, plant based body wash is different.

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the alarm about a growing mental health crisis across the country. we just learned that the combination of covid and overdose deaths drove down our life expectancy by a year and a half. the biggest drop since world war ii. plus a new report warns that our schools do not have the resources to handle our kids' mental health needs when they head back this fall. joining us to discuss, executive vice president for policy at the mental health america. mary, you are calling on the federal government to help states get a handle on this. what would that look like? >> yes, stephanie. we are seeing just incredible increases in anxiety,

depression, emergency room use by youth. so we're really concerned about that. so we're calling for a strategy at all levels of government, states, national, and we want to see coordination among agencies led by the white house to really get this problem moving in the right direction, instead of what we've been seeing. >> only a few states actually have laws that let kids have excused absences for mental health reasons. how do we do that nationally? >> we need to see more states stepping forward. this is something that has been led by youth. that's something we found in our report. youth are speaking up about this problem and they want to see statutes being passed state by state that allow excused absences for mental health just like we have for physical health, because they're saying mental health is health, right? so they want to see us recognize that throughout schools in everything that we do. so more states need to get

active. we only have a handful that have passed these laws and so many others that we cover in our report. >> how hard is it going to be to get kids back in school and assimilated? we keep saying open the doors, let them in. but for some kids, they have had immunocompromised family members and they've been in complete isolation for a long period of time. >> absolutely. we have seen this, when we talk to youth, they talk about the isolation, the loneliness, and the difficulty finding help and knowing how to help a friend. and so that's why we cover in our report mental health education in schools. again, new york led the way, k-12, mental health education requirements. and technical assistance to help with that. but not very many states have that. so students don't know what they're seeing, what are the signs and symptoms. i really wish i had had that. when i went to college, i had a dear friend who had major

depression, died by suicide after we graduated, and i didn't know how to help her. i didn't know what to say and what to do. we can fix that. we can require mental health education in our schools, and we need to. >> we certainly do. mary, thank you so much for your work and thank you for joining us this morning. if you at home know someone who is struggling or you, yourself, are struggling with mental health issues. please know you're not alone. you can speak to someone immediately by calling this number on your screen, 800-273-8255. moving on, there's another set of unintended consequences of the covid lockdown. it is around returning to restaurants. we know more than 100,000 of them closed for good last year, and the ones that survived are trying hard to make up for lost revenue. good news, lots of diners are coming back. but the return of restaurants, i can't believe this, but it's true, also means the return of a whole lot of rudeness, maybe ruder than ever. my next guest had customers that

were so abusive to her staff that she had to shut down her restaurant for a day of kindness. joining me now, the co-owner of the at cape cod, a restaurant in massachusetts. six months ago, we couldn't even go to a restaurant and sit indoors. we thought we were going to be so grateful, we would be happy to wait hours if we had to. but you're now saying you are seeing worse customer behavior than you've seen in 20 years. what in the world happened? >> it's just like there's still so many people that are grateful to be back, but the ones that aren't are indignant about what they want and what they deserve. so it's been a lot of demanding, not patience, just wanting to be sat right away, wanting to eat right away and doing or saying whatever they can to get their

way, to a lot of young children. the restaurant industry is staffed by, you know, summer workers and part-time workers and college kids here where we live, and people will say things that i can't even say on tv to them in order to express their dissatisfaction for having to wait an hour or more for a table. >> okay, but conventional wisdom, long before covid, even if you had bad service, it is never a good idea to be rude to the person who is handling your food. why do you think this is happening? >> i think that we've been locked away for a year and a half and that somewhere along the way you always have had to deal with a tiny bit of abuse in the restaurant industry. it's kind of the thing, like people tell you you're stupid or you're uneducated because you're a server, or they just don't view it as a skilled trade. but now it's gotten to the point

where it's explicits, so it's a little bit of covid and a little bit of the culture that's been created in the service industry. >> people were locked away for so long, they had all that rudeness held up. but let's talk about what issues the industry has had before. because people are now walking out on the job because they just don't want to deal with customers. forget about having their feelings hurt. if the structure of restaurant jobs is depending on tips from people who are verbally attacking you, do we need to change that? i mean, two bucks an hour, three bucks an hour and maybe a tip doesn't seem like a job a lot of people would want to have. >> no, it's like you're working really hard to satisfy the customer to earn your money, and on the cross-hand, we've talked about it, if we pay our servers, $15, $25, $30 an hour, no one is going to pay $50 for a hamburger and that's something that they would have to want to do, is to

pay for an increased amount of food. >> doesn't that seem like a broken business model? i should give you abusive wages to get a burger that i'm willing to pay for, doesn't it seem like this is a call to action to do something about the model? >> yeah. i mean, a lot of us have talked about it to figure out where is the payoff. our servers are paid the minimum here, $5, we pay our chefs and back of the house employees a liveable wage or some of them we give a discount on their housing that we can provide that helps to make up for it. but, yeah, that's something we should all get together in the service industry and talk about, and the community, is how do we meet in the middle, how do we meet somewhere for the increased amount that you're willing to pay for your food so that the people who work there don't have to 100% rely on tips.

>> then what was the impact of that day of kindness? maybe a lot of other restaurants need to implement that, maybe a lot of customers need to think about it. >> i mean, the response has been international. we're getting places as far away as australia and new zealand saying that's happening to us here, thank you, guys, for standing up and saying something. local restaurants and restaurant owners have been, like, you know, that's happening to us here. there are horror stories we're having and other kinds of things, as well as people in the industry. so i think that it showed that you don't have to take it, you don't have to stand for it, and the response to kindness has been great. our staff got paid to take a day off or hang around and help chef and i do some projects we wanted to do, catch up on some training because we have such a short season for when we can make money here on cape cod. and then we had a big party on

monday for our staff, just as our monthly get-together, and it's been crazy. people want it to keep going, so that's what we're trying to do. >> rock on. kindness, keep going with it. here's a little tip for those who don't want to pay 50 bucks for a burger and specialize in rudeness, kindness and gratitude are free. thank you so much. i appreciate you joining us. i appreciate all that you do. coming up, i want you to look at these pictures. smoke-filled hazy skies, more than 2,000 miles away from where the fires that are causing are actually burning. a dire warning this morning. bug a dire warning this morning. y 's coverage customizer tool? so you only pay for what you need. sorry? limu, you're an animal! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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now to those raging wildfires wreaking havoc out west and the extreme impact they're having more than 2,000 miles. people in new york and philadelphia went to bed with these eerie red sun sets, skies coast-to-coast were under a haze triggering air quall concerns across the country. for more let's go to nbc news' garic hayes. how worried should we be. >> reporter: you have fires in oregon and california scorching hundreds of thousands of acres causing air quality problems in

cities like new york and baltimore and right here in washington. a fiery tuesday night sunset lighting up the east coast, fumeled by these orange skies, taking hold across the drought-stricken west. as wildfire smoke there drifts across the continent, triggering air quality warnings here. >> that is just nasty. the haze and the smoke coming down across our area. >> reporter: satellite imagery showing the smoke spreading across the u.s. all the way to the east coast. in the west, more than 80 wildfires are burning across 13 states, torching more than 1.3 million acres of land. a raging battle against fire and wind as firefighters work to put out the flames. in oregon, the bootleg fire is so big, it's generating its own weather by producing its own massive cloud, creating strong thunderstorms, lightning an strong winds that can potentially start more fires. that megafire, the largest in the u.s. this year has already devoured nearly 400,000 acres of

forests and forced thousands to evacuate. in california, the fire near lake tahoe has many areas under mandatory evacuation orders. >> they gave us 20 minutes' notice. you know, it looked like they said the fire was five, six miles away, an hour later, it was right on us. >> reporter: the smokey infernos out west causing hazy sky. >> there is a ton of smock across the continent. >> reporter: stretching from fron toronto to philadelphia. in new york city a plume of haze clouded the skyline, the air quality tuesday, the worst the city had seen in nearly 15 years. >> reporter: stephanie, that california wildfire is zero percent contained. it is early in the fire season, which means we could be looking at these challenges across the country for a long, hot summer

ahead. >> oh goodness, garrett haake, thank you have much. we have breaking news coverage on the other side of the break.

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